


The Hero of This Conte Does Not Like the Wedding Bells

by WhyWhyNot



Series: There Are No Fairies In Those Tales [5]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29174586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyWhyNot/pseuds/WhyWhyNot
Summary: Shawn only wanted to catch a bird.
Series: There Are No Fairies In Those Tales [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1966342
Comments: 30
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gerbilfriend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gerbilfriend/gifts).



Shawn is trying to catch a bird.

A pheasant. He is trying to catch a pheasant.

Pheasants are great. They taste good, and have a beautiful plumage, prized for hats and ornaments. If he catches one, he can get a good price from it.

Of course, he might get into some trouble, looking for such noble game without permission. The Lord-Mayor cares little, but an overzealous man of arms might take some offense.

Still. The prize is well worth the risk. Addison’s birthday is coming soon, and Shawn wants to save some money to get him some kind of trinket to celebrate.

Shawn is just trying to catch a bird. He doesn’t want trouble, on the contrary.

A woman’s scream echoes between the trees.


	2. Chapter 2

The person who screamed is a young woman on the cusp of adulthood. She’s sitting on a tree branch, clutching the trunk for dear life. Beneath her, a wild boar of impressive size.

The boar rams into the tree. There’s a sword embed in its shoulder, but it didn’t reach any vital organ, and serves only to fuel its fury.

The tree won’t hold much longer, and the girl will have no escape then.

Shawn pulls out his crossbow and shoots. He misses.

No time to prepare another bolt. He will have to use his spear.

Somehow, Shawn avoids the boar’s onslaught. Somehow, he plunges the spear in its neck. Somehow, he manages to stay unharmed until its thrashing stops.

Somehow, he kills the beast.

Somehow.

Shawn’s heart is beating hard in his ears.

The girl climbs down the tree and picks up the sword. She’s wearing fine clothes, indicating a high status or a rich family, he notices in a daze.

What now?


	3. Chapter 3

“You saved my ward,” says the Lord-Mayor.

Samantha Charger. The girls Shawn saved from the boar is Samantha Charger, daughter of the late head of the guard.

Ward of the Lord-Mayor of Appletown.

“Such an act deserves recompense,” says the Lord-Mayor.

Shawn doesn’t want a recompense. He wants to escape to go home to his son, away from this place and those people. He’s not rich, or of noble birth. He doesn’t know how to speak or behave here. 

Maybe he can convince them to let him keep the carcass of the boar and leave it at that. He could smoke some of the meat, and sell the rest. That would be enough for him.

Please let it be enough for _them_.

“Traditionally, said recompense would be the hand of the rescued damsel,” says the Lord-Mayor.

Oh no.


	4. Chapter 4

The problem is, Shawn has no desire to get married.

He’s fine as he is. Happy. Kelly might have left, but he understands her reasons, and he has Addison. Really, his son is all he needs.

He doesn’t know anything about Samantha Charger. Their personalities might be completely incompatible. They might hate each other, and that would do for miserable matrimony. She’s _ten years_ younger than he is. 

Shawn isn’t rich, but he’s happy. He’d rather hunt, and fish, and do odd jobs than… Whatever it is rich and powerful people do with their day. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do amongst them.

He wants to go home. Take Addison, and go home, back to his life from before the mighty decided to thank him through honors he dreads.

Shawn doesn’t want to get married.

The problem is, the Lord-Mayor said he has to, and this is not the kind of offer that can be refused.


	5. Chapter 5

As it would be improper for him to wed Samantha Charger too quickly, and would likely lead to uncomfortable rumors concerning the state of the young lady’s virtue, Shawn gets a grace period of two months to allow him to get to know his bride.

Samantha is… Nice. Really. She’s kind, and polite, a proper lady, but there’s a steel under the lace, and he can appreciate that.

She wasn’t just wandering through the forest when he saved her. She was tracking down a criminal.

At least, she’s not boring.

Apparently, before his death, her late father was attempting to capture a lawbreaker who specialized in freeing fellow outlaws from jail, but he unfortunately departed before he could see this task to the end, and Samantha has since been trying to finish it in his stead.

That is what she was doing, that day in the woods, but the lawbreaker angered a boar, and left her to face it, and Samantha’s sword lodged itself in its joint and refused to be pulled out.

Now that he thinks about it, the wound slowing down the boar might be the reason Shawn survived the beast’s onslaught.

Samantha is nice.

Shawn still doesn’t want to marry her.


	6. Chapter 6

The Lord-Mayor invites Shawn to a family dinner.

“Please, call me Keith,” says the Lord-Mayor.

Shawn does not have the words to express how much he can not do that, and resolves not to talk unless spoken to for the entire dinner. 

Fortunately, Samantha caught her lawbreaker, and has plenty to say about him. Complaints about his inappropriate attempts at courting her, mostly. 

Shawn hopes they’re not expecting him to say anything about it.

Not that he doesn’t have an opinion. He does. He thinks Samantha’s lawbreaker, well, doesn’t deserve to be thought much off.

Why are there so many forks and knives? No one needs so many forks and knives! Which one is he supposed to use?

Lord above, Shawn is _never_ going to be at home here.


	7. Chapter 7

Shawn wishes he could go home.

He doesn’t want to marry Samantha. She’s nice enough, and pretty, but she’s too young for him, and there isn’t any spark between them.

Shawn wouldn’t mind having Samantha for a friend, but that is a world away from being her spouse.

Shawn wishes he could go home. This world… This world isn’t _his_. There are codes and double-talks and conversations on matters he knows nothing about, long and boring ceremonies, responsibilities he neither wants nor know how to fulfill.

This place isn’t the Court, but it’s a court nonetheless, and being Samantha’s husband means he will have to be part of it.

Shawn wishes he could go home.

He can’t.

The Lord-Mayor said he has to marry Samantha.


	8. Chapter 8

Two days.

Only two days before the wedding.

Shawn looks at the man in the mirror, at his well-groomed hair, at the richly embroidered clothes just tailored for the fateful day.

“Do you like it?” he asks Addison.

“No,” Addison says.

Shawn turns toward him in a prompt for elaboration.

“It doesn’t look like you,” Addison says. “And the clothes they gave me make me look like someone else, too. It feels like we don’t matter. Like they just want pretty dolls with our faces, and they can do anything they want with them.”

There are tears in Addison’s eyes.

“I just want to go home,” he says.

It might not befit the status the Lord-Mayor is thrusting upon him, but when Shawn goes to hold his son, he doesn’t care for any wrinkle that could be made to the precious fabric.


	9. Chapter 9

The wedding is tomorrow, and Shawn will not be there.

He’s sorry about Samantha. Being left by the groom on the day she was to marry might be hurtful. Humiliating, even. Shawn is really, really sorry for that. Just not sorry enough to stay.

Shawn doesn’t want Addison to grow up somewhere he can’t be himself. He doesn’t want him to be a doll, a puppet, to dance to the tune of the Lord-Mayor.

Shawn doesn’t want to be one either.

Packing up their old clothes and what little money he has didn’t take long, and neither did waking Addison up. Sneaking past the guards took more efforts, but they managed, and soon, they are walking in the moonlight.

They can’t go home, but they can go make one somewhere else.


	10. Chapter 10

It’s a beautiful summer night.

The sky above Shawn is empty and full of stars, an abyss opened so wide he thinks he might fall upward onto the moon. It’s beautiful.

They’re already several miles away from Appletown, and it is unlikely their absence will be noticed before the night. They should be able to get far enough that finding them will be difficult.

They’re not running. It would only serve to exhaust them. Slow and steady wins the race.

The sky is beautiful, and Shawn breathes deeply the summer air. The walk feels good.

He’s free.

They’re going to start over from nothing. It’s a bit scary, but not too much. They didn’t have much to begin with.

It will be fine.

“Is that Miss Charger?” asks Addison, and Shawn looks at where he’s pointing.

There’s a woman walking on the road.

It’s Samantha.


	11. Chapter 11

Shawn considers grabbing Addison and hiding in the bushes, but Samantha is already walking toward them.

“You decided to run away too?” she asks.

Wait a second.

 _Too_?

“Are _you_ running away?” Shawn asks.

“You're very nice,” Samantha says, “and you did save my life, but I have no desire whatsoever to marry you. No offense.”

“None taken,” Shawn says. “I don’t want to marry you either. No offense.”

They stare at each other and burst into laughter.

“Where are you going?” Samantha asks.

“Cawthorn,” Shawn says. “I’ve heard it’s a good place to start over.”

“Oh,” Samantha hesitates. “I’ve heard the former knight who lives there went mad, and is trying to lure people to feed them to his dragon, or try forbidden alchemy on them. I’ve also heard that he has… unnatural predilections.”

“Oh,” Shawn says, and then he adds “Where are _you_ going?”

“Saint Francis,” she says. “It’s very big, so it will be hard for Keith to find me there, especially if I use a different name. And I've always wanted to see the University at least once. You can come with me, if you want.”

Shawn thinks about it. If Samantha is right about Cawthorn…

“I’d like to,” he says.


	12. Epilogue

Jamie Newman, formerly known as Samantha Charger, is happy, or close to it.

Settling in Saint Francis was hard, at first, but they made do. Shawn and Addison changed their family names to Newman, and they told everyone that she was Shawn’s sister to avoid gossip. It appears to have worked. Keith didn’t find them.

Jamie still feels a pang of guilt whenever she thinks about Keith. She might not have wanted to marry Shawn, but Keith took her in after her father’s death, took care of her, and leaving like a thief in the night left a bitter taste in her mouth. She misses him, sometimes, and Arthur, and little Keith.

She’s earning some money teaching children how to read. Their chances to ever enter the University are slim, but it doesn’t stop their parents from dreaming, and Jamie is of the belief that everyone should be able to read. She taught Shawn and Addison for that very reason.

Shawn does odd jobs in the neighborhood, helping in stables and kitchens and with fixing rooftops, and Addison… Addison is learning from him.

They’re happy, or close to it.


End file.
